{"id":508967,"date":"2026-06-20T03:08:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T03:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/508967\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T03:08:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T03:08:13","slug":"sinn-fein-mep-sues-government-over-eu-canada-trade-deal-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/508967\/","title":{"rendered":"Sinn F\u00e9in MEP sues Government over EU-Canada trade deal law"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sinn F\u00e9in MEP Lynn Boylan is suing the Government over a law enabling the ratification of the Canada-European Union trade deal.<\/p>\n<p>The Arbitration (Amendment) Act 2026 was enacted this week after President Catherine Connolly signed it into law, allowing the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (Ceta) to be ratified.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, Judge Brian Cregan granted permission to Boylan&#8217;s counsel, Eileen Barrington, instructed by FP Logue solicitors, to serve proceedings challenging the 2026 Act on the Government.<\/p>\n<p>The case, which also lists Boylan\u2019s parliamentary assistant S\u00e1r\u00e1n Fogarty as a plaintiff, will return to the court next week.<\/p>\n<p>Ceta was previously blocked by the Supreme Court in 2022, when then Green Party TD Patrick Costello challenged \u2013 essentially against the policy of his own government \u2013 the ratification of the agreement.<\/p>\n<p>The court ruled that parts of the way the deal would work infringed the Constitution, stopping ratification in its tracks.<\/p>\n<p>It said that investor-state arbitration schemes in Ceta were not compatible with the Constitution.<\/p>\n<p>Such schemes \u2212 designed to settle disputes between states and investors \u2212 bypassed the role of Irish courts, which would be powerless to respond to an award granted by a Ceta tribunal, the court held.<\/p>\n<p>The government says the 2026 Act addresses issues identified by the Supreme Court relating to the investor courts system.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"not-prose no-underline\" data-action=\"click\" data-category=\"Read more article clicked\" data-label=\"https:\/\/www.breakingnews.ie\/ireland\/jury-in-jeffrey-donaldson-sex-offences-trial-sent-home-for-weekend-1915907.html\" data-value=\"1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.breakingnews.ie\/ireland\/jury-in-jeffrey-donaldson-sex-offences-trial-sent-home-for-weekend-1915907.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>        <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/2-85006424-1.jpg\" class=\"rounded-sm object-contain bg-transparent z-10 w-full h-full not-prose\" alt=\"Jury In Jeffrey Donaldson Sex Offences Trial Sent Home For Weekend\" width=\"278\" height=\"156\" \/><\/p>\n<p>        Ireland<\/p>\n<p>Jury in Jeffrey Donaldson sex offences trial sent home for weekend<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Act also enables ratification of other international agreements containing similar investor dispute resolution provisions, including with Chile.<\/p>\n<p>The free trade elements of the Ceta agreement, which included an abolition of almost all tariffs previously in place between Canada and the EU, have been provisionally in place since 2017.<\/p>\n<p>Opposition TDs have continued to voice concerns about the system of investor courts.<\/p>\n<p>Boylan has previously criticised the government\u2019s efforts to fully ratify Ceta, stating that the investor court provision leaves the State liable to being sued by big businesses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sinn F\u00e9in MEP Lynn Boylan is suing the Government over a law enabling the ratification of the Canada-European&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-508967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}